Nine European gambling regulators warn on prediction market oversight ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland have agreed to tighten cross-border cooperation on prediction market platforms before the 2026 FIFA World Cup. For PSPs and operators, the message is simple: if a product starts looking like betting in one jurisdiction, regulators may decide it should be treated like betting there.

1. The joint statement comes from gambling regulators in nine European markets: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. They said the coordinated effort is meant to strengthen oversight during one of the world’s biggest sporting events, when betting activity tends to spike and enforcement gets more complicated.
2. Regulators said prediction markets have expanded well beyond a niche audience and now attract substantial user activity across multiple jurisdictions. The products let users speculate on political, sporting, economic and geopolitical outcomes, which is exactly why they sit awkwardly between trading, forecasting and gambling depending on the structure and the local rulebook.
3. The key regulatory concern is licensing. Authorities said some operators may be offering prediction market services without the licences required under national laws, which creates uncertainty for consumers and makes enforcement harder for regulators. For high-risk payment teams, that usually means more scrutiny on where the merchant is authorised, where the users are located, and whether the product is being marketed as something other than gambling.
4. The statement also draws a straight line to player protection. Regulators noted that licensed gambling operators are generally expected to use responsible gambling controls, age verification, consumer protection measures and monitoring systems for suspicious betting activity, while some prediction market platforms may not be subject to the same requirements if they are operating without local authorisation.
5. Authorities singled out betting limits, time restrictions and robust age verification as areas where some platforms may fall short. Their concern is that these gaps can expose consumers to additional risk, especially around major sporting events that bring in more casual users and more volume, which is usually when weak controls become visible fast.

The practical takeaway for PSPs, acquirers and banks is that prediction markets are now firmly on regulators’ radar in Europe, and the World Cup gives them a convenient reason to coordinate. If a platform is touching multiple jurisdictions, the question is no longer just whether it can process payments, but whether every market on the route to settlement is comfortable treating it as a gambling-adjacent business.